Gana Unnayan Parshad has been implementing one project on the capacity building cum livelihood development of the Street Food Vendors at Kolkata Slum areas and on the streets of Kolkata to maintain the safe quality of the food in collaboration with Joy Gopalpur Gram Bikas Kendra South 24-parganas and supported by Inno-Aid Denmark since 1st August2011.
The Street Food Project sets primary focus on the Street food vending business in the city of Kolkata, capital of West Bengal. Kolkata is the 2nd largest urban agglomeration in India with a population of 13.2 million. It is known as the main business ,commercial and financial hub of eastern India. Like many metropolises in India, Kolkata have an experienced of rapid urbanization leading to increased size of the city,s labour force .The informal business sector is growing in Kolkata, providing the opportunity for self employment and to develop business skill with low capital investment for the growing urban poor population. The increasing urbanization has brought people to travel from suburbs to their job places in the city, modifying their way of life and eating habits. So the street food business has increased due to peoples’ demand of cheap ,tasty, diverse, available and nutritious food.
Street Food vending in Kolkata is part of the informal business sector and plays an important socio-economic role by providing jobs and nutrition for many urban poor and contribute to the economic growth of the society. The informal sectors has comprised more than 40% of the labour force ,generating business worth Rs 8,7772 crore (around 2 Billion). In Kolkata approximately 1,30,000 street food vendors are daily providing food for around 7 million people. The streets of Kolkata host lower income entrepreneurs from all regions of India and Bangladesh, practising the proud tradition of Tasty and diverse Indian cooking and thus constituting and important cultural value.
Despite the socio-economic and cultural value of the street food sector little has been done by the local authority to support the business. The several vendor organizations have played a vital role to implement the National policy for the Street Vendors but absence of infrastructure and lack of political will nothing has been achieved .After considering the abovementioned issues Gana Unnayan Parshad has undertaken several activities in collaboration with Joygopalpur Gram Bikas Kendra South-24 Parganas supported by Inno-Aid, Denmark.
The street food project targets the 700 beneficiaries who are selling food on the street in different places of Kolkata for strengthening their capacity and upgradation of their skill and knowledge on maintain quality of food and also to protect themselves from different kinds of hazards they are facing.
The overall goal of the project is to empower a board spectrum of street food vendors in Kolkata, building their capacity to align with the National Policy of Urban Street Vendors and to support the process of recognition and formalization of the sector at a state level.
The Main objectives are a) Selected street food vendors and their families have each been invited to participate in 3 interlinked workshops to obtain practical, educational, and technical tools on how to improve their waste management system, hygiene practices, and kiosk design. more than half of the invited vendors participate actively in all workshops while the other non-participants will obtain the tools through their regular dialogue and collaboration with participating vendors.
Qualitative Change:: At least half of the workshop participants did found those workshops beneficial to their business and started using a number of the practical, educational, and technical tools obtained during the workshop. Through out the project period GUP along with collaborative organization will develop strong network with the different stakeholders for attaining the goal of the project by establishing the national policiy,s agenda in the state policy for betterment of the Street Food Vendors.